In 1817 and 1818, Napoleon had three works published in London, Lettres du Cap [The Letters from the Cape of Good Hope], Lettres d’un Capitaine de Storeship [Letters of a storeship captain], and the Manuscrit de l’île d’Elbe [The Elba Manuscript; On the Bourbons in 1815], in order to mobilise public opinion for his return to Europe, a return he believed in until March 1819, when he learned of the fateful decision of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (29 September-21 November 1818) to keep him in exile on St Helena.

It is these three works of propaganda, each with a very different style, that Pierre Branda, head of the Heritage Department of the Fondation Napoléon and author of numerous remarkable works (the most recent: Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène, Perrin, 2021) presents and comments on in this new volume Ecrits clandestins de Sainte-Hélène [Clandestine writings from St Helena], the latest opus of the collection “La Bibliothèque de Sainte-Hélène” directed by Thierry Lentz.

Read an interview with Pierre Branda (in English).

Presentation of the work in English

► The other titles in the series “La Bibliothèque de Sainte-Hélène” are:

Volume 1. Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène. Le manuscrit retrouvé, Text established, presented and commented by Thierry Lentz, Peter Hicks, François Houdecek, Chantal Prévot;

Volume 2. Journal de Sainte-Hélène, version intégrale par le général Gaspard Gourgaud, Text established, presented and commented by Jacques Macé;

Volume 3.“Général Buonaparte, notre voisin”: Témoignages anglais sur Napoléon prisonnier (1815-1821), texts prepared, presented and commented by Peter Hicks, to be published in 2022;

Volume 4. Cahiers de Sainte-Hélène. Les 500 derniers jours (1820-1821), by General Henri Gatien Bertrand, Text established, presented and commented by François Houdecek.